Weight Loss Discussion Thread

[nightrider]

Brave enough to get back on the scales after a few weeks off and surprised to find no weight gain.

[hellymedic]

Brave enough to get back on the scales after a few weeks off and surprised to find no weight gain.

I had nearly a month off the scales too...

[hellymedic]

Partner's brother stayed with us earlier this week.
He's just started a new job, which means he's up on his feet more and he's a really slow eater.
Seems his BMI has dropped to 17.6. He looks slim but not skeletal

(click to show/hide)

or GAUNT.

Think he needs a bit more CAEK & chocolate...

[bikey-mikey]

So what did you weigh before the sub nine hour 200?

63.2 ?

Two litres would be about right.

Nope. Not dehydration.

I wasn't dehydrated when I got home, but unusually I had drunk nearly half my 750 ml bottle, cos it was warmer today....

I keep a chart by the scales in my ensuite, and weigh first thing, post rides and bed time, and more if my clothes are off...

I was 62.8 when I got up, pre breakfast, but for some reason my early ablutions didn't happen till I got back home, and if they had happened first thing I would guess pre ride would have been 62.4

I'm not riding like most other riders, burning copious amounts of glycogen, with the requisite copious amounts of water needed for the conversion to ATP....

I note the low readings on the charts, and at the moment they are coming quite regularly, either post ride or the following morning.

Tomorrow will be interesting, but probably only to me...

[simonp]

Since I’ve been riding at a moderate pace more, I’ve been drinking less water. I only drank about 1L on the arrow plus coffees.

[sojournermike]

Another slight gain this week - cold followed by holiday and +food/-exercise are responsible. Need to reverse this week.

Positively, got two miles in on the bike on Saturday - first time since I fell off 7 weeks ago iirc.

[Blodwyn Pig]

lowest i've been in living memory    91.5kg t'smornin' . Gosh I feel skinny, (well I am 6'2")

[mcshroom]

[velosam]

Another slight gain this week - cold followed by holiday and +food/-exercise are responsible. Need to reverse this week.

Positively, got two miles in on the bike on Saturday - first time since I fell off 7 weeks ago iirc.

Good for you - back on the bike!

[sojournermike]

Thanks Sam.

Stopped the rot this week. Back to 87kgs, down 0.3

[SteveC]

Although the last couple of weeks look like the beginning of a trend, I'm taking this slight rise as a bit of a win. Silly weekend and I've lost a lot of the temporary blip I saw on Monday morning. Next weekend is also likely to be 'bad' but things should start to get better after that

[hellymedic]

Minimal and IMO insignificant gain from last week after a three day Hotel Break.
Not unhappy.

Just 3kg to go for my 57kg goal.
The end is in sight
or unreachable...

[Lady Cavendish]

Good work by the losers

I have recently got some off. I love food so much this kills me and I'm just totally sick of being hungry The Entire Time. My training volume is currently very very high, and so is intensity. Luckily, it seems to be working well as I did a PB last night at a TT on a course where I thought my PB was already strong, and it's only April. So this bodes well. And my running is ok as well.

I have ALWAYS struggled to get down to 9 stone, my body naturally wants to hover around 9 and half when I'm training hard. But this morning I was 8 stone 9. This is very light for me, and I'm shocked I've got here to be honest. But it really is so hard, and I'm wondering when to stop- how to know when it's enough. My weight is all in my thighs at the moment, I'm not light with a BMI of 20, but there isn't all that much extra hanging around. I do think I can get a little more off maybe, but my thighs are always going to be huge. And I'm not sure how much longer I can take the hunger.

The incentive of the size 4 wedding dress I need to fit in in not too many weeks time is certainly there, but I'm more worried about running/riding to be honest!

[hellymedic]

You are well below 9 stone now.
Stay where you are.
The fat on my thighs seems to be redistributing and I suspect yours will do the same so long as you eat sensibly - ie a maintenance diet, not a weight loss one.

Size 4??

My hips were still 98cm (38½ inches) this morning, which, though very small for me, suggests I'll never be less than a size 10.

You're doing fine; don't make yourself ill!

[Lady Cavendish]

I thought I could never ever be less than a size 10. It's bloody hard to hold it here though, I'm naturally quite chunky.

I'm really a size 6-8 I'd say at the moment, size 6 in next, but the dress came out as a 4 when I was measured for it- it's just that designer I think.

My thighs won't shrink, it's not fat on them it's muscle and I don't really want that to disappear, they are quite TT friendly.

I might try and stay here but I don't even know what a 'maintenance' diet is to be honest! I think I might even have to carry on eating not enough to stay down here.

[sojournermike]

You're doing fine; don't make yourself ill!

This.

If you lose power you've probably lost a bit too much weight.
If you get ill you may well have lost a bit too much.
It's likely to be safer, given your exercise levels, to be slightly high than low, certainly for all but the one event you care about in the year (and after which you will take some proper time off).
Losing to much and/or overtraining will cost you more than carrying 3 or 4 extra pounds most of the time.

[Lady Cavendish]

I don't seem to have lost any power at the moment- that's why it's hard to say that I should be stopping here. I feel fine, just really bl**dy hungry.

I never take this 'proper time off', I have a few events that are more important than others, sure, but I do things all year round, just switch sports a bit

I totally agree that if I was getting ill etc I've gone too far, but the fact I'm not kinda makes me feel I haven't gone far enough if that makes sense?

[hellymedic]

You are probably OK but you will obviously have gone too far if you get sick or weak.

Given that your wedding is imminent, you really don't want to get sick!

I'd suggest 48 hours off all exercise every week and just enough food to stop you feeling hungry all the time. Accept up to two hours of hunger if you don't feel in danger of imminent collapse but no more.

Fat burning release stress hormones and this may leave you tired.

[Lady Cavendish]

Good god there is no way on earth I'd be having 48 hours a week off exercise! I don't have any rest days at all, 2 in a row is crazy talk to me. I'm a twice a day kind of girl, sometimes 3 times, I have an occasional day off the bike where I just run, but I don't feel the need for rest days never mind 2 

Currently, I don't feel anything like sick or weak. I don't feel anywhere near collapse. Just that if a bar of dairy milk was within half a mile I'd sniff it out and do the whole family size bar. And like I want to eat every half an hour. Maybe I'm just greedy and need to learn to put up with hunger. Or eating less often!

I'm actually not at all fussed by this wedding shenanigans, I'm just seeing it as a holiday, I'm not one of these bridezillas. I'm totally disorganised with it.

[simonp]

Honestly, I think rest days are important. I don't like it, but they are necessary.

If you are constantly pushing your body and running at a calorie deficit, you might have fluid retention. This would mask any weight loss. Then you might suddenly dump that fluid and lose some weight. Some claim that a way to trigger this can be to eat more on a given day and hence is born the concept of the 'refeeding day'. Eating more on some days can also help avoid the body going into starvation mode and prevent lowering of metabolism and muscle protein loss.

I'm having one* now.


* A refeeeding day.

[sojournermike]

Yes, I understand and agree.

The hard thing is that the line is invisible, at least without the sort of testing and time invested in understanding individual physiology that professional athletes have available (hope that the implicit assumption about your professional status is OK?!) Also, total load including work and other stresses.adds up. Therefore, you're always experimenting really and need to keep a check on how you feel and are going day to day. A danger is feeling great as you progress straight through to the tell tale cold and 6 weeks off. Been there:)

Resting heart rate in the morning, looking for rises.of more.than.4 or 5 bpm over normal, and remembering Graeme Obree's advice that improvement occurs while you sleep or rest. Body composition is probably useful too, but I'm not yet entirely convinced by my scales.

Hope this isn't 'teaching Grandma to suck eggs'. Glad your going well and in the direction you want.

Mike

[sojournermike]

In 'winning middle distance running', Peter Come suggested one rest day per week for elite athletes. I moved forward with running when I accepted that a rest day wasn't two sessions of squash, 'because it's not running'.

Rest is critical to performance and longevity in sport.


I've just had a refueling lunch. House of Tides on Gateshead quayside. Jolly good fare.

[simonp]

My body fat scales were consistent with bf% measured at a sports lab using skin folds. Then they died. The new ones measure way higher and seem really insensitive to visible changes in fat. They measure at hands and feet unlike the first set.

The zonal thing they do claims I have 27% fat in my upper body. They are claiming 22% overall. I am measuring 6mm at the supra iliac point and this equates to around 14%. Maybe I have a lot of visceral fat. But my waist is not large. So that suggests not.

I would like to try a DEXA scan to know for sure.

[Lady Cavendish]

I think it depends on what you're used to and how your body handles it. I'd take a rest day before an important race, sure, but I don't need them on a weekly basis. If enough of the training is easy riding, interspersed with racing/intervals/whatever, then for me its fine. If I wasn't doing the easy rides easy enough it might be different. And the running only days break it up. I seem to comfortably handle 2000 miles a month on the bike and running every other day.

I'm also mentally happiest training twice a day. If the pros can get away without any rest days, then I don't see the issue really. If I feel I need one, I take one, but not for the sake of it. Some people need one every week, we're all different. If I can see my HR is up I'd consider it, but it's currently 37 so not overly concerned in that respect.  I know my own body pretty well and when it does need rest, I'm not averse to the idea, just not when I don't need it.

x post-  I've spoken to a few elites/pros about this, and most of them don't have rest days. I was quite shocked that cyclists often don't have any sort of off season either, I thought they would, but loads just go straight from road to track to road etc with no break at all. I thought they'd take a couple of weeks at the end of the season.

[simonp]

On a slightly divergent topic, I'm having a VO2max & metabolic efficiency test again next week. It'll be interesting to see if my attempts to work on fat burning have paid off, and if doing lots of steady miles has increased my VO2max at all. I know my RHR has dropped by 15bpm since February when I last did the test. I've cycled 1,000 miles in a month and that should have done something.

I'll also be asking them if they know where I can get a proper body composition analysis.